Tampa Strip Clubs: Hyde Park Cafe: Tampa’s top drinking destination
June 25, 2009If the cafe and his other businesses, which include Cheap restaurant and the Kennedy lounge, have made him rich, he doesn’t show it. Ortiz wears the same outfit every day — black T-shirt, shorts and a bandanna — and drives a 1997 Toyota pickup with no A/C. He has a soft spot for shih tzus, fluffy little dogs with underbites. He owns eight.
In a rare sitdown interview, he offered his take on the cafe, in good times and bad.
It was 1995, and Ortiz had recently closed Tuts Pyramid, an underground hip-hop club on Franklin Street. He was driving along Platt Street and saw a gay strip club called Bunz had shut down. As he called the property owner to inquire, a woman posted a “for rent” notice on a duplex behind the bar.
See the full article from “Tampabay.com”